Chair

"Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) will leave his job as chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee after Republicans gained at least a dozen House seats in Tuesday’s midterm elections," the Huffington Post reports. "Israel confirmed his intention to step down to The Huffington Post."

“I’ll tell you what I’m not going to do over any term. I’m not going to stay on as D.C.C.C. chair,” the Times quoted Israel as saying. Israel, DCCC chair since December 2010, told Newsday that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) asked him to serve for another election cycle, but he declined.

House Democrats lost at least 12 seats in Tuesday’s election, giving Republicans their largest majority in the lower chamber of Congress since the 1940s. Some races remained too close to call on Wednesday.

Two new reports suggest that Florida congressman Debbie Wasserman Schultz might be nearing the end of her run as chair of Democratic National Committee. The first comes from Shark Tank, a Florida blog:

Paul Ryan opens the door for a presidential run.

Paul Ryan was interviewed on Fox News’s SpecialReport last night. Watch the segment for an impressive, and unapologetic, defense of the House Republican budget—and (what Republicans too rarely stress) an explanation that the status quo is "collapsing." His plan, Ryan says, "saves Medicare from going bankrupt. Senator Reid seems to be content with the fact that Medicare is going bankrupt because they're offering no plan or solution to solve the problem."